Headache Care.net

Botox ingredient has limited effect on headaches

2012-04-25T05:24:00Z

The main ingredient in Botox may be modestly helpful for people with chronic migraines, a new report suggests - but it doesn’t seem to offer much relief for those who have less-frequent headaches.

Patients who started out having headaches almost every day reported two fewer headaches per month when they were given injections of botulinum toxin A. But they also had more side effects, including weak muscles and stiff necks.

The medication is marketed under multiple brands, but Allergan’s Botox is the best known. Botox is used to treat a range of conditions in addition to migraines, including wrinkles and excessive sweating.

New Migraine Guidelines Rank Rx, OTC Efficacy

2012-04-25T04:06:00Z

Seven different drugs are proven to be effective for preventing episodic migraine attacks and another half-dozen are probably helpful, according to new guidelines released here by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

An evidence review by the AAN and the American Headache Society also identified several over-the-counter (OTC) products, including herbal supplements, with either proven or probable efficacy.

The announcement accompanied publication of two practice guidelines on prevention of episodic migraine - one for prescription products and another for nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs and “complementary” therapies - in the April 24 issue of Neurology.

Prescription drugs listed as having proven effectiveness against migraine, defined as a significant benefit in at least two high-quality randomized trials, included one triptan agent, three beta-blockers, and three anti-epileptic drugs.

Migraines likelier in men with impotence

2012-04-02T07:26:01Z

Men who have been diagnosed with erectile dysfunction are 63 percent more likely to also have had a diagnosis of migraine headaches than men without the sexual disorder, according to a new study from Taiwan.

Dr. Tobias Köhler of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, who specializes in male sexual function and fertility, told Reuters Health this is the first he’s heard of any such relationship between migraines and impotence.

“It’s an interesting first recognition of the correlation, but by no means does it mean they’re causally linked,” said Köhler, who was not involved in the new research. It’s not clear what might explain the link between erectile dysfunction (ED) and headache, although migraines have been linked to sexual dysfunction in women, the study authors note in the journal Cephalalgia.

Severe headaches tied to suicide attempts

2012-03-23T08:32:00Z

People with severe headaches, whether migraines or not, may be more likely to attempt suicide, a new study suggests.

The findings don’t prove that headaches caused the suicide attempts, but a number of studies over the years have found that people with migraines tend to have a higher suicide rate than those without the problem.

But it has not been clear whether it’s related specifically to the “biology of migraines,” said Naomi Breslau of Michigan State University in East Lansing, who led the new study.

“We haven’t known if it was the migraines or the pain more generally,” Breslau told Reuters Health.

Babies’ colic linked to mothers’ migraines

2012-02-21T00:01:01Z

A study of mothers and their young babies by neurologists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that mothers who suffer migraine headaches are more than twice as likely to have babies with colic than mothers without a history of migraines.

The work raises the question of whether colic may be an early symptom of migraine and therefore whether reducing stimulation may help just as reducing light and noise can alleviate migraine pain. That is significant because excessive crying is one of the most common triggers for shaken baby syndrome, which can cause death, brain damage and severe disability.

“If we can understand what is making the babies cry, we may be able to protect them from this very dangerous outcome,” said Amy Gelfand, MD, a child neurologist with the Headache Center at UCSF who will present the findings at the American Academy of Neurology’s 64th Annual Meeting, which takes place in New Orleans in April.

New migraine clinical trial guidelines

2012-01-24T20:23:00Z

Experts from the International Headache Society (IHS) have developed new recommendations for conduct of acute and preventive migraine clinical trials. The third edition of Migraine Clinical Trials Guidelines is now available in the IHS journal Cephalalgia, which is published by SAGE.

The new guidelines represent an expert consensus summary, and recommend a contemporary, standardized, and evidence-based approach to investigators conducting and reporting randomised, controlled migraine clinical trials.

Migraine clinical research has increased exponentially since the last set of guidelines was published. Clinical researchers and pharmaceutical companies have accumulated further experience, and the trend is towards large, multi-national and multi-centre studies. Given these developments, it was timely to bring the guidelines up to date.

The IHS stresses that it endorses adherence to the guidelines unless there is scientific justification to deviate from them. They represent research practice parameters and are the highest level in the hierarchy of evidence-based recommendations in the absence of published standards of research practice.

Headaches common in kids months after brain injury

2011-12-08T08:21:01Z

Kids who have a concussion or other traumatic brain injury are more likely to develop headaches for up to a year afterward than children who have had a bodily injury, according to a new study.

While not entirely surprising, the results point to a difficult long-term problem for kids and their parents because adequate treatments are lacking, researchers say.

“It’s an issue because they may have problems with sleep, and the headaches can make it harder to concentrate,” said lead author Dr. Heidi Blume at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

Migraines may raise depression risk: study

2011-11-25T17:53:00Z

People who get painful migraine headaches may be at a higher risk for developing clinical depression, suggests a new study from Canada.

The research, published in the journal Headache, also hints that the relationship may go both ways, and people with clinical depression could have a higher risk of developing migraines, but that finding could have been due to chance, the researchers say.

Nonetheless, lead author Geeta Modgill, who was at the University of Calgary while conducting the work, told Reuters Health that migraine and depression sufferers should know the signs of both ailments since each might be at a higher risk for the other condition.

Imagined smells can precede migraines - study

2011-10-17T21:43:00Z

Hallucinated scents such as a burning or rotten smell, or even the scent of foie gras, can be a part of the “aura” that some people perceive before a migraine attack, although it is rare, according to a U.S. study.

About 30 percent of people with recurrent migraines have sensory disturbances shortly before their headache hits, known as aura, but these are usually visual, such as flashes of light or blind spots. Tingling sensations or numbness, or difficulty speaking or understanding language, may also appear.

But the study, conducted by Matthew Robbins and colleagues at the Montefiore Headache Center in New York, found that a small number of people described smelling scents in conjunction with their headaches.

Treatment Options for Cluster Headache

2011-09-14T08:52:00Z

Cluster headache has a substantial detrimental effect on quality of life. New invasive procedures, such as hypothalamic deep brain stimulation and bilateral occipital nerve stimulation, may help patients with chronic refractory headache.

This is one of the conclusions reached by Charly Gaul and co-authors from the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Essen in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International.

Cluster headache is the most common trigemino-autonomic headache, affecting some 120,000 people in Germany. Typically, patients suffer unilateral short attacks, which are accompanied by restlessness. The causes of cluster headache are not clear. Men are affected more often than women, with a ratio of 3.5:1.

Europe May Have Less Headaches

2011-09-14T08:50:00Z

In a move that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) turned down earlier this year based on a lack of evidence that it actually works, St. Jude Medical has won European CE regulatory approval for the use of its implanted neurostimulation device for patients with severe chronic migraine headaches. Earlier this summer, the FDA said it wanted to see an even greater rate of migraine improvement for patients in the study using the device compared with those in a control group.

The new European device treats migraines by stimulating nerves at the base of the head with electrical pulses, which seems to block pain signals from reaching the brain, St. Jude said. There are currently few treatments for people who suffer serious recurring migraine headaches.

The therapy for this condition involves delivering mild electrical pulses to the occipital nerves that are located just beneath the skin at the back of the head. A small electrical lead or leads are placed under the skin and are connected to the neurostimulator, which produces the stimulation.

Drug may help ease Ramadan headaches: study

2011-08-25T06:37:00Z

A painkilling, anti-inflammatory drug may help prevent headaches in Muslims fasting from dawn to dusk for Ramadan, according to a study from Israel—where a “Yom Kippur headache” is also known.

About four in every ten people who abstain from food and water all day during the month-long Ramadan period get headaches, said the study, published in the journal Headache. This year, Ramadan began on August 1.

“Religious fasting is associated with headache,” wrote lead researcher Michael Drescher, from Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, the United States, referring to Ramadan and Judaism’s Yom Kippur, when people fast for 25 hours.

The association of alcohol drinking with migraine headache

2011-06-15T01:29:00Z

Migraine is a neurovascular disease that affects about 15% of the western population. Compounds in foods and beverages (chocolate, wine, citrus, etc) considered as migraine triggers include tyramine, phenylethylamine and possibly histamine and phenolic compounds. Avoiding those triggers may significantly reduce the frequency of migraines in some patients.

However, only a small percentage of patients in one study became headache-free simply by excluding those foods, epidemiological studies are pointing out that genetic factors may be an underlying cause. Discrepancies in the way people are reacting to wine intake, and whether or not it triggers migraine, may be potentially explained by genetic polymorphisms in specific enzymes related to metabolism Alcoholic drinks are a migraine trigger in about one third of patients with migraine in retrospective studies on trigger factors. Many population studies show that patients with migraine consume alcohol in a smaller percentage than the general population. Research has shown a decreased prevalence of headache with increasing number of alcohol units consumed. The classification criteria of alcohol-related headaches remain problematic.

An excellent paper from The Headache Center in Empoli, Italy by Panconesi A et al (Curr Pain Headache Rep (2011) )15:177-184 summarizes the scientific data relating to alcohol and migraine headaches. The factors that trigger an attack of migraine, or of other headaches as well, are poorly understood.

A pill to prevent migraine?

2011-06-02T07:50:01Z

The discovery of a gene for migraine holds great promise in the quest for new approaches—possibly even a pill—for preventing the disease, says a panel of experts presenting data at the annual scientific meeting of the American Headache Society. So far, there is no therapy that prevents an attack.

Guy A. Rouleau, MD, whose Canadian and British research team was first to sequence the gene for migraine last fall, says for the first time since the discovery of the triptans in the 1980s, investigators seeking to develop new migraine therapies are excited about the possibility of preventive drugs for migraine. Triptans act by constricting blood vessels in the brain which in turn inhibit pain receptors which can block migraine in some patients. They are e not considered preventative therapies.

“We may be moving toward developing about a pill that would block the brain’s pain channel that reacts to stimulation and causes pain in migraine,” says Dr. Rouleau. ‘Sequencing the gene not only allows us to understand the disease – it also opens understanding of the pain pathways that trigger migraine pain.” Dr. Rouleau is director of the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center and Full Professor in the Department of Medicine of the Université de Montréal

Precision-tinted lenses offer real migraine relief, reveals new study

2011-05-27T07:13:01Z

For the first time, researchers have shown why precision-tinted lenses reduce headaches for migraine sufferers, a finding that could help improve treatment options for patients battling the debilitating ailment.

Jie Huang of Michigan State University’s Department of Radiology used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to reveal how precision-tinted lenses normalize brain activity in patients with migraine headaches, preventing such attacks.

Huang’s research appears in the current edition of the journal Cephalalgia, published by SAGE.

While tinted lenses are increasingly used for migraine sufferers, until now the science behind the effects was unclear. The team led by Huang showed how colored glasses - tuned specifically to each migraine sufferer - work by normalizing the activity in the brain’s visual cortex, which is responsible for processing visual information and is located in the back of the brain.